10 years ago, I graduated Uni with no debt and about $1,000 net worth.
My first job (engineer) paid $100k/yr. After taxes & expenses, I saved $70k per year for 3 years.
With $200k net worth, I lived on $5k per year and for the past 7 years, I worked only 30% of the time – just enough to cover my expenses without dipping into my savings.
This year I sold bitcoin (bought for $7,000. sold for $1,000,000). My target to retire-retire was $800,000, so I’ve finally reached my goal.
The sell orders executed so fast that I don’t know where to put it. I already stuffed every US bank that I have to the $250k FDIC max, but my last sell order exceeds that. I’ve applied to open bank accounts with maybe 100 banks in the US, and I’ve only succeeded in opening 1. My requirements:
[1] No monthly fees
[2] No inactivity fees
[3] No phone or phone number required
[4] Online Banking with 2FA support (TOTP, Webauthn, or email)
99% of the banks that I’ve tried to open with auto-deny me. My credit is great. When I call and ask why, they say something about the information I gave them not matching their records. The ones that have an appeal process told me “the system” denied me, and there’s nothing they can do – even supervisors.
My long-term plan is to buy a small condo in a city and a lot of land in the country. But it’ll probably take me 6-24 months to find and finish those deals, and in the meantime I want to keep my money somewhere safe.
I’m also a bit worried about the USD tanking. I’ve looked into banks in Europe and Canada, but Canada requires a tax ID and I only speak English. Can anyone recommend a very stable bank abroad (with English language support) that a US American can open remotely that meets the above requirements?
Where would you put your money if you were in my situation?
If I had to guess, the requirement for no phone number and TOTP preclude OP from a lot of the big institutions in the US. I know none of my banks offer TOTP, only SMS. I’d be really interested in seeing the hundred banks which don’t require a phone number.
My guess is OP has found some smaller credit unions which do support the requirements, but they may be more risk adverse, and the Bitcoin earnings may look like illegal gains? Also some credit unions only allow certain members, such as NFCU which is only available for military service members and their family.
Good guess! I’ve also never seen a bank do TOTP
https://2fa.directory/
I have 3 banks that use TOTP. It’s common in credit unions.
That’s an awesome link!
Correct about credit unions, but not about the bitcoin earnings. I was denied before I was asked the source of my income or even how much I’d be transferring-in. This was an application just for a standard savings/checking account.
Unless the AI that is denying me learned that I used to work for a company that does cryptocurrencies. Or read my blog and saw the word “bitcoin” and put me in a “high risk; deny” bucket. It scares me to realize that’s possible in 2024 :(